Different Chord Progressions

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Questions and Answers

Chord Progressions?

Im starting to teach myself how to play the piano. I really just want to know chords and chord progressions. Can anyone give me a basic understanding or help me a little? Like if i did a B minor chord how would i know what would work with it?

Posted by PrettyBoi

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If you're just starting, don't start with B minor! 🙂

One example, in C major. The notes of the scale are numbered:
C=1, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=6, B=7.

Try the following chords- 1, 4, and 5. Those are the very basics for most music. The 7 chord (or 7 diminished, blues 7) are used right before resolving to 1.

Note- it sounds really awful if you play the 1 chord, 2 chord, 3 chord, etc.

Also, compliment minors work well. The compliment minor for C major is A minor. I think.

It's been so long since I took music theory!! I would recommend two things- 1. Experiment with what sounds good to you, and 2. Check out some 'basic music theory for dummies' books. I would highly recommend learning to read sheet music, and learning about the notes of the scale, and all the different keys to play in.

What are some different chords and chord progressions?

So I'm trying to write some songs for a musical and I really want some variety in the chord progressions for each song. I am trying to stay away from the overused I, V, VI, IV pattern, but I really don't know any patterns beyond that. When I compose, I compose by ear, because I don't really know enough music theory, but it's quite hard to find a definite chord progression that I like. I also don't know a lot of chords beyond major, minor, inverted, and other basic chords like seventh. I want to look up things on the internet but I'm not even sure what to search. Could someone please give me some suggestions about different chords and chord progressions?
I know about the circle of 5ths and major/minor arpeggios, but if anyone could also give some more tips on writing music that would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!
Cat.

Posted by Cat

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According to me, this depends a lot on how you want your music to feel like. And since it's for a musical I guess that's now even more important. Check out some tabulatures and chords on songs you already know, maybe from other musicals, it's okay to "steal" other interesting chord progressions (I find a lot of my ispiration in Mark Knopflers/Dire Straits songs and chord progressions). Classical music has the most variated chord progressions, check out some of those. You may notice that a lot of songs even in the classical genre have that "overused" chord progression or similar styles of it, and that is because humans in the western world are just used to it and consider it the sound that sounds most "right" and "best". However, doing something new to it makes it even better.
I guess you would also like to have a concrete example, here's a chord progression I like to do, for example:
Playing around the Dm, C, A#, F which is a quite common thing to do, but add a A#/G chord (it's like an G7 but the B note is now a A# note) just after you've played an A# and then go down to a F will give a nice touch.
Remember also, each chord in a chord progression doesn't have to have the same lenght. This is will make a normal chord progression sound a lot different.
Though, if you didn't find this helpful at all and you were looking for a complete different chord progression; check out other cultures than the western one. Examples could be like: Algerian-, Arabian-, Prometheus-, Balinese-, Byzantine-, Mongolian-, Iwato-, Hirajoshi-, Hindu-, Spanish-, Spanish 8 note- or Eqyptian scales. Though, those scales may not sound "right" at all for a "western cultured ear".

So i am a bass player and i been making basslines out of different key chord progressions ..?

And adding different key triads and 7ths and stuff and its been working out for but i just want to know if this is bad that i do this ? They sound great to me . How do u guys guitarist or bass players come up with basslines and guitar riffs or licks?

Posted by Oni Levi

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In my case, I listen to songs that I like with the knowledge that most songs have lousy bass parts in them. That is to say that the average bass part is boring and was probably created by a bass play that was simply following the rhythm and the chord progression and therefore the result is a pretty boring and predictable bass part. As I listen to the songs, in my mind I can always hear a better bass part than the one being played. So, once I get that bass part figured out in my head, I will hum it into my Roland R-05 hand held recorder so that I have it captured the way I think it should be played. Then I just need to learn how to play it on the bass. So, if you want to learn how to create exciting melodic bass parts, listen to the songs you like and hear how boring those bass parts are an then listen for the bass part that really wants to be played there instead and learn how to play that part.